Cartagena traditions, baking the rolls of San Anton

Cartagena, Five generations of bakers

This week the region celebrates the day of san Anton, and in churches across the region, animals are  blessed, alongside the little rolls of San Anton, los rollicos, the little rolls in some parts of the region, or panecillos in the murcian city confectioners.

The tradition of blessing the little rolls goes back to the story that San Anton walled himself up for 6 months to fast and pray, sustained only by small pieces of flat, dry bread, hard through age and which lasted for months in his dark, silent cell.

During this time he is said to have been tormented by the devil, images of roasting meats haunting him whilst he dined on dry bread, a feat of self denial which murcians celebrate in the only way they know possible - by eating lots of meat themselves, hence the number of barbeques and sizzling plates of octopus downed this last weekend.

These litle rolls are said to bring good luck, hung up on a ribbon, the little rolls will keep pestilence from the animals and whoever has a roll of san anton in their purse will have good luck and money in their purse all year!

Last year we bought the little rollicos in the murcian huerta and were intrigued to know if they were any different in the Cartagena area, so went off to an artesan bakers to find out how they make these little rolls in the Cartagena campo. 

We went to the Panaderia in Pozo de los Palos, a little hamlet just outside Molinos Marfagones, near to la Magdalena and talked to Antonio García Otón, a fifth generation baker who runs the panaderia with his staff.

The same family have been baking bread and cakes from this same location since the beginning of the nineteenth century, so if anybody was going to know a thing or two about the rolls of san anton, it was going to be them.

Once ascertaining that Saturday would be a good time to visit as they would be making and baking the little rollos that morning, the question of what time do you start came up, but finding out that the preparation began at 3.30am, as it does every morning, 7 days a week, we opted for a more civilised 8am, so missed the actual preparation of the dough.

Traditional rolls are made using only flour, water, salt and what´s known as the "Creciente Divina", yeast which is dried and remains from one year to the next within a holy environment, usually the chapel where the saint is located, but most producers of these little rolls don´t go that far in their pursuit of holiness and arrange for a priest to bless the finished result instead.

Once the "masa" is prepared, it is rolled out into long sausages , then simply cut into shorter lengths, rolled around by hand and laid out on baking trays for the oven.

It really is as simple as that, but when there are several thousand to prepare as there were in the bakery on this particular morning.... 

Once on the trays, the little rolls are baked in a wood fired oven, manipulated in a masterful fashion by a skilled baker who has worked in this same job since the age of 15, 35 years of skilfully pushing the trays around the oven, a lifetime of experience knowing where to move the trays within the oven space and how long to leave them in the oven down to the last second.

This oven is the only one of its kind in the area, with the fire lit below the main baking chamber in a separate section, spreading the heat more evenly throughout the oven, and when it was installed 70 years ago was the envy of the neighbourhood.

"Most traditional bread ovens have the fire in the same space as the bread, but these require a lifetime of skill to master as each has it´s hot and cold zones and it´s quite easy to "catch" the loaf and deliver an uneven finish or overly crusty loaf."

Modern bakeries use convection ovens, with automatic timers and steamers , but the truth is, it´s never the same as an artesan loaf, an honest, distinctive product which is one of the great joys of murcian country living, and let´s face it, the ash on the bottom of artesan bread is the best bit and the bread wouldn´t be the same without it! 

Every stage of every process carried out in the production of these artesan breads, cakes and pastry products is carried out by hand, even down to the baking of breadsticks, rolled by hand, onto the trays by hand, taken off by hand, the whole processes highly labour intensive and relentless.

And specialised. The "cream man" comes in on Fridays specifically to fill the puff pastry horns and make those wickedly calorific puff pastry stacks, smothered with smoking chocolate, an expert at manipulating a cream bag, a job none of the other staff will undertake. 

And there´s no let up for a baker. 

"Customers expect their bread 7 days a week, " we were told, "regardless of whether it´s a sunday or a fiesta day, the one person who is always up at 3am working on a fiesta day is the baker." 

And at the major celebrations of the year the demand for special cakes, the Roscon de Reyes at christmas and the giant empanadillas for the fiestas ensure that the artesan bakers are busy throughout the year. 

But, as with many other historical arts, commercialism is taking its toll, and small bakeries struggle to compete with the supermarkets who can churn out a pale imitation of the real thing for half the money. The big supermarket chains destroyed many small family bakeries in the UK and these family run bakeries will go the same way unless they receive the support of their local communities.

There are plenty on the way to closure at the moment we were told, the rising costs of fuel to deliver to householders throughout the area as has always been done, nobody wants to pay the 5 cents more it´s costing the bakers to deliver than 6 months ago.

How can they compete when their costs are going up, but the supermarkets fighting their own customer war just keep slashing the price.

Well there´s only one way and that´s the taste test.

So if you get the chance, try the bread from one of these little wood fired bakeries. It´s a totally different experience to anything you´ll buy in a supermarket, more substantial, more flavoursome , more.....satisfying.

Try it on the patio, with a glass of good local wine, a hunk of cheese and a bit of local morcillo from the butchers.

And as you reach out for another slice, because honestly, one is just never enough, remember this was made by hand, shaped and baked by hand and made in the same way it´s been made for the last 200 years.

Surely that´s worth a euro of anyone´s money.

This little panadero is in the Village of Pozo de los Palos just outside Molinos Marfagones, but there are many like it scattered around the region.

All of them will bake you bread to order, so if you want one of those wonderful 5 kilo loaves of bread which are such a great treat for parties, so you can show off to your visiting family what a real loaf of bread looks like, they´ll bake you one. You only pay by weight, but it looks fantastic on a picnic table!

The Panaderia Antonio García Otón is in the main high street running through the centre of the village, in Carretera La Guia, tel 968 16 86 37.

He´s got a web page on www.panaderiadepozodelospalos.com

Click for map, Pozo de las Palos, Cartagena